There is Something in the Air

I'm Back! So sorry I haven't gotten to the blog in so long. I do this on my own time at home and we have been remodeling our home in preparation for the holidays. We don't hire someone to do this we actually do the work ourselves. There just hasn't been enough of me to go around.

Thinking of the holidays I have a tradition of setting up a Christmas village at my home. Each year I invite my 2nd graders to come enjoy the wonder and magic of the village. My home will be open this Wednesday the 15th and Thursday the 16th from 5-9 pm. I invite all of you to bring your children over to my home to enjoy this bit of the season. You can bring your other children also.

Math
We have been working on understanding odd and even and on grouping by 2, 5 and 10. We are really trying to build an understanding of tens and ones the basis of our number system. You might think this is too simple for 2nd graders but many of them still don't understand this most basic concept. Thank you for helping your child do and return their homework.

Reading
Last week the students were administered a State Literacy test. Most of them did very well. Of course we always have a few student who are still struggling with reading at this point in the year. We will keep working and learning together. I am now in the process of administering the Fountas and Pinnell reading test. I must complete these individual tests before we go on holiday. Mr. Griffith offered each teacher 2 half days of subbing for us during the year. Last Friday and this Monday afternoon I have been able to test individual students because he has been in our classroom teaching. Thanks Mr. Griffith!

Vocabulary
Last week we read a book caled Dear Mrs. LaRue. We learned about writing letters. The students are practicing their new skills by writing letters to Santa Claus. Their words were melodramatic, misconception, neglected, obedience, despair, and persistent. This week we will read a book called "Everybody Cooks Rice." It talks about people in a neighborhood from many different cultures but all of them cook rice. This goes along with our study of cultures and customs at Christmas time from around the world. The words we are working on this week are: boarder, community, appetizing, gulped, grumbling and diversity. I hope your family will continue to use some of these words around your home to help add to the children's understanding of their new found vocabulary words.

This week we will be learning from parents about customs in Germany, Denmark, Australia and Argentina.

The students are working on a special gift for their family that will be coming home hopefully on Friday.

We will be having a Token Store on this Friday the 17th. I encourage the students to use their tokens to buy things for brothers and sisters or friends. If any of you have items to donate for the store I would welcome your donations. Thank you for all you do to help in many ways in our classroom.

Just a reminder that for the class Christmas party on Wednesday the 22nd each child is asked to bring a new or gently used book, wrapped. This will be used as a book exchange gift. Each child will come home with a different book.

Today's keyword is "The Magic of Christmas". Please write it on the front top of your child's yellow tracking papers. Your child will receive 3 tokens if your write it there.